


a word that sometimes you cannot say

by plinys



Category: Captain Marvel (2019)
Genre: F/F, Post-Movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 16:43:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19255141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: Carol comes back.





	a word that sometimes you cannot say

**Author's Note:**

  * For [unicornstore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicornstore/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAIT!!! I've never written for this ship before, and tbh probably 100 other people have written this scene, but this is a gift so I hope you like it!!

Carol comes back.

Of course, she always intended to come back. 

Had made a promise once to be back for Christmas, not to stay away too long. But time seems to pass differently when you’re worlds away. When there’s so much of the Universe to see, to  _ protect _ . When there’s so many things that she still needs to make amends for. So many wrongs to right.

Time passes in the blink of an eye.

Too quick, and yet, not quick enough all at the same time.

And the next time she enters the atmosphere of C-53 years have passed without her even realizing it.

In her time away, protecting the galaxy, other bits and pieces of her memory have come back. It will never be perfect, never a complete record of the life she had lived before becoming  _ Vers,  _ the accident that had given her these powers also having taken away a part of her. But it comes in flashes. Memories unprompted spilling forth as she suddenly has a story to tell. Dreams that are too real to just be dreams. 

_ The county fair from her childhood, bruised knees, a beer bottle smashed on the ground that she carefully steps around. _

_ The rigors of bootcamp, falling down time and time again, but never forgetting to get back up. _

_ The way the Christmas lights sparkled around a tree, the cover of darkness as they hid carefully wrapped presents underneath.  _

_ The bartender making one last call, the lights dim, and hips swaying against hers where nobody can see.  _

_ The kisses in the back of the hangar where nobody will see, rushed and hurried, time limited as it is. _

It’s not all of her memories.

Not even close.

But it’s more that she had the last time she was here.

More than enough to explain why her chest ached at the thought of leaving Maria and Monica, the thought of leaving her  _ family _ behind. At the time not having realized just how much of a family they had been before she was taken away from them. 

She can’t stay.

She’ll never be able to stay. 

Not the type of person that is meant to stay in one place for too long.

Not the type of person meant for a happily ever after.

But for the moment when her feet touch the ground outside a familiar house. She can almost imagine that she might just be able to linger here for a little bit longer. That the woman from her memories could still be here, and the promises that two women made to each other in the dark of the night, a little drunk, and a little too eager, might still hold true. 

She takes a deep breath. 

Takes a step forward. 

Until the girl - no,  _ young woman  _ now - on the front steps looks up at the sight of her. Nearly dropping the book in her hands at the sight of her. It’s been years, the sight of Monica, a teenager now, clearly proof of that much. 

Carol knows from looking in the mirror that time hasn’t changed her own appearance.

But for a second she wonders if time has dimmed the memory of who she was from the features of the girl before her. Though the tension slips away a moment later, when a smile appears on her features, and she says, “You’re late, Auntie Carol.”

“I got a little lost along the way,” Carol replies, pulling Monica into a hug.

“But you managed to find your way back home,” Monica insists.

And she’s right.

_ Home _ .

Somehow of all the places she’s been.

All the planets she’s been, this one place, above all else, feels the most like home. 

Not, C-53, though she knows that’s where she’s from.

But here.

At this one house.

In a world full of other places that don’t fit right.

In a galaxy filled with places that could never be her home. 

Monica pulls back with a smile, turning towards the door, and calling out, “Mom!” so loudly that for a second Carol feels like her heart is about to burst from her chest.

An anticipation that comes.

She knows rationally that it’s been years, and even then years before that.

That the memories in her head may have sustained her during all of her time in space, but it wasn’t the complete story, and even then it was such an old story, that it would be understandable if Maria had moved on to someone else. Someone that could always be here for her, that would never have to leave. 

A part of her feared that coming back here, Maria might turn her away, that it might have been too long and too much.

But when Maria appears standing in the doorway, she doesn’t seem unhappy to see Carol, in fact there is a small smile there at the edge of her lips, and a teasing tone when she speaks, “Took you long enough.”

It’s been years.

Years and years.

And she doesn’t have a good excuse for any of it.

So, instead, she says, “I remember things, not everything, not yet, not maybe ever… But I remember you.”

_ I remember loving you _ .  

This time the smile on Maria’s face aches with how familiar it is, how relieved it is, as she repeats herself, with fondness this time, “Took you long enough.” 


End file.
